A moment with ... Dan Piraro, 'Bizarro' cartoonist

Published 10:00 pm, Sunday, April 30, 2006

Many cartoonists may think they are pretty darn funny, but Dan Piraro actually puts himself to that test on stage.

The 47-year-old creator of "Bizarro," a syndicated cartoon seen in 250 newspapers (including the Seattle P-I), visited Seattle with a dual purpose -- to perform his stand-up act at the Comedy Underground and promote his "greatest hits" book titled "Bizarro and Other Strange Manifestations of the Art of Dan Piraro" (Abrams, 200 pages, $24.95).

The triple-threat funnyman -- in print, on stage, off stage -- discussed his work and life while accompanied by his wife (Ashley Smith) and his daughter from his first marriage (Killian Piraro, who plays violin in his stage show).

Is drawing talent learned or inherited?

I think it's like singing. The majority of it is genetic. You can improve your skills, but you can't create them. Either you can sing or you can't -- drawing is the same way.

Well, here's the two worst. I had a temp job delivering phone books door-to-door in August in Dallas. There were 47 days that summer over 100 degrees and I was lugging those heavy books. And the job shortly after that, I sat in a small windowless room and filed and alphabetized press-on type. There were hundreds of styles and hundreds of point sizes and I did that in a dungeon of a room for four months. Then I went insane and left.

You write, "Had I not found myself under a heap of bourgeois responsibilities early on, I almost certainly would not have become a cartoonist." Why?

If I had the courage to go to New York and just figure things out, I would have become a fine artist. But being trapped in the Midwest in an unhappy life, with a family I didn't plan for, those pressures forced me to find a way to make a living, first in advertising, then cartooning. That was nothing I aimed at -- I wanted to be a serious artist, make great statements, be remembered in history. ...

My interest in cartooning started late, but it turned around quickly. I got the idea of cartooning at 24; I was syndicated at 26. My first year of work was pretty undeveloped, but you get good quickly when you have to come up with an idea a day, 365 days a year. There are two skills you have to have as a cartoonist -- the ability to write a cartoon and the ability to sustain it every day. That's a separate skill, but you have to be able to do both.

Is marriage better after the ceremony is performed by an Elvis impersonator in Las Vegas?

Yes, but not because of the Elvis impersonator. It is connected to the fact that I married someone who was just as excited as I was about being married by an Elvis impersonator. This isn't a woman who put up with it -- Ashley got excited by it. That's the secret of it ...

And what a surreal day it was. The electricity was out in the chapel so there was only candlelight and Elvis had a battery-operated boom box and he was singing at us. Our families were in various stages of coma and stunned-ness. And it was tax day, April 15, which happened to be convenient, since the whole family was in Las Vegas. I also thought April 15 is already a crappy day on the calendar, so being married that day wouldn't ruin anything if the marriage doesn't work out.

What is the one thing about you that your many fans would never suspect?

I'm very honest. If I believe in something, I throw it into my cartoons (including his divorce, his support group, his vasectomy, his becoming a vegan after meeting Ashley). Some people still don't realize that I'm liberal and progressive politically, including right-wingers who come to my shows and seem surprised.

But a lot of people are really shocked that I was raised in Oklahoma, or that I lived in Dallas early in my career. People just assumed I lived in New York. I do live there now (in Brooklyn), which is a perfect place for someone who has to come up with a joke a day for life. Every time I leave the house I see something I've never seen before. Every trip on the subway provides enough material for a week's cartoons.